Public Health
Peter Bottomley Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I agree with what the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said in giving thanks and recognising the sacrifice that many have made in their lives, their work and their relationships.
Where the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister agree on these regulations, I shall agree as well. Were it possible to table amendments, I would have done so. I have been to three church services recently. One was for a funeral, one was the morning service on Sunday, and the other was the monthly communion at St Margaret’s, where I am the parliamentary warden. All those services were covid-safe. I believe that if we have to come back to this again, the Government ought to be able, with the faith leaders—the Jews, the Muslims, the Christians and other faith groups—to find a way for them to provide for at least a body of people to be together with the celebrant, with others participating remotely.
May I also say that after 34 years, Pamela Carrington, who has looked after successive rectors of St Margaret’s, Westminster, is retiring? I pay tribute to her this afternoon, and I hope that it may be possible in the future, Mr Speaker, for you to make a presentation to Pamela Carrington in recognition of all the support that she has given to Members of Parliament. We thank you for letting us use your dining room in normal times for our monthly breakfast, too.
On the regulations, provision has been made for the centenary of the tomb of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey. I am glad that that has been built in. That was thoughtful. Perhaps as a result of the work of Coxswain Iain McKenzie in my constituency, who raised the question of the Submariners Association memorial on the Embankment, provision for remembrance attendance, appropriately and safely, is in the regulations. I give my support to that.
I want to come to the points where I believe we have not got it right. I believe that two people playing tennis, separated by a net, can do so safely, and as safely as if they went for a walk. The golf restrictions are unnecessary. There is obviously responsibility on a club or a premises, but I think that should be possible. If I can go for a walk with a dog or a cat or fly after my parrot—I do not have any of those—I ought to be able to go around with golf clubs. There are interesting questions as to whether swimming, so long as one does not have infection risks in changing rooms, can be safe. Basically, I think that all separated sports should be allowed. I can see the problem with more intimate sports, such as wrestling and other recreations of that kind, but I believe that we ought to be able to make provision for people to get exercise.
Munira Wilson
I am not a wrestler, but I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way on the issue of physical activity. I have just heard from councillors in my constituency that, under the restrictions, a skate park for young people has to be closed. How can that be sensible when young people need something to do? It will just end up being damaged while it is closed as they try to break into it. They can socially distance and have physical activity, which is also good for their mental health.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I hope the Secretary of State for Health will pass that on to other people to see if provision can be made and guidance provided. Obviously, there are going to be boundary problems, with one side saying yes and one side saying no. There ought to be space in between where, under conditions, that is possible. We all have to take responsibility for contributing to reduced social contact to reduce risk, but if we do those things, we can learn from what we have done in the past and do it better in the future. I hope that this month of restrictions has the effect that we all want it to.
I want to finish by saying that we are not just looking at these regulations. I still criticise the Government for using the covid provisions to bring forward the regulation to put extra storeys on leaseholders’ blocks of flats. That was improper. It was not necessary and it should not have happened. I return to the last point, which the Chancellor will be dealing with: what will the compensation be for those who are affected and are not getting support? The people in the events industry, whether music or exhibitions and so on, and those in the freelance sector, which has been a growing part of our economy for the past 20 years, seem to have been hung out to dry. Those who started new businesses—we know that four out of five new businesses do not last—in the past year or so seem to have been excluded. I believe we have a duty to do more for those people. The excluded should be included.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Bottomley Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I join my hon. Friend warmly in paying tribute to the Archbishop of York as he lays down his crozier. He and I correspond very often and I take his advice very sincerely. I had no idea that today was such a distinguished birthday.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill
Peter Bottomley ExcerptsTuesday 2nd June 2020
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I am aware that boundary changes can make a difference to MPs and their prospects. When the boundary changes came in before the 1997 election, the ones proposed in my former seat were the best possible for me, but adverse—I would have stood and lost.
At the last moment, there was a deal between the Tory leader of Greenwich Council and the Labour leader to bring in the worst possible ones, so there was a major boundary change that allowed the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) to be elected, having not succeeded the previous time—although there is a rumour that in the previous election he held a victory party at 10 o’clock and then had to come and hear my victory speech.
The self-interest when people consider these matters is epitomised by the background paper written by the Liberal Democrats in 1982. They wanted to have multi-member constituencies, with the exception of the Orkneys and Shetland, Isle of Wight, and probably Isle of Ely as well—all three Liberal-held constituencies.
In the same way, people look at the article by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, published in Parliamentary Affairs, volume 47, issue 3, in July 1994, in which they describe very calmly what the Labour Government tried to do in 1969, which was put through primary legislation to avoid the boundary commission proposal being implemented.
When the House of Lords blocked that, the Government were not going to take any action at all until court action forced the then Home Secretary, James Callaghan, to put it to the House of Commons; and then they had a three-line Whip on Labour Members to vote against the boundary changes. I regard that as showing that some people look at these matters in the light of self-interest.
If we had made the change to 600 MPs, the Worthing constituencies—that of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and my own—would not have changed; we had the right number of electors. I would be disappointed if, with 650, there had to be changes, but I doubt they would be very significant.
However, the next time we have a Bill like this one, the Government may want to consider whether they really want to say to the Electoral Commission that the number has to be exactly 650 or 600-and-something, or whether they could allow a margin of appreciation if that would help to solve a particular problem. Last time, the Isle of Wight argument resulted in two proposed seats; that sort of flexibility could be useful. I am not saying that we should change the Bill now, but when we consider what to do in the future, we should do that.
My last point is perhaps the most important one. We ought to use the electoral register as the Government propose, but much, much more effort should go in to making that register full.
I have attended various discussions over the years in which people say we should use mobile phone records and other ways of checking and double checking, and actually inviting people to come on to the register, and saying that if they do not, they are not complying with the regulations and the law.
I hope that people will realise that going on the electoral register is right, necessary and helpful. Then, we will not have to face the argument that we ought to use a previous general election register, which with five-year Parliaments or anything like that would be three, four of five years out of date, instead of being as up-to date as possible.
Each of us has a great relationship with our constituents and our constituencies, I would like to mention an NHS hero, the Reverend Father Dr Biji, who for many years was the vicar of the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox church in Harold Hill in Romford, who was also a hospital chaplain on the south coast, and who has sadly died. In his memory, I use the words on his church website, which come from John 10:11:
“The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep”.
Budget Resolutions
Peter Bottomley Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I think the most challenging speech after the Chancellor’s was the one by the Leader of the Opposition, and he discharged it well. The most challenging to listen to was the one by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), the leader of the SNP, who seemed to put each page of his notes to the back of the pack and go through them twice. We were told not to interrupt him, but he interrupted himself about six times, so perhaps we could have a go instead next time. I think he was really saying that he welcomed the freeze on duty on whisky and the promotion of Scottish products overseas, and he will probably welcome the Barnett increase in spending available to the Scottish Government. Having said that, I would like to turn to the UK side of the Budget.
The Government will have to recognise that our pattern and levels of taxation will change dramatically over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, with climate change and adaptation to it. If we think of the amount of money that has come from the duties on tobacco, fuel and the like, that is all going to change. We have to be prepared for a proper debate on what we are going to tax, when we are going to tax people and what we are going to spend the money on. I prefer a life cycle approach; I prefer giving people generous help when they are dependent, encouraging independence and making sure that, when people come to later stages of life, they can get proper, full help without having to ask for it.
One initiative from the Chancellor that I particularly welcome is the extra £1 billion to help people affected by dangerous cladding on buildings. That is in addition to the £600 million announced by a previous Communities Secretary. I pay tribute to the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, which I help to lead, and which has managed to give a voice to the voiceless. I deeply regret that the Government’s advisory service, LEASE, did not immediately tell the Government that private leaseholders in big blocks were completely exposed as the only tenants who were expected to pay for the waking watch and for the remediation of dangerous cladding.
I pay tribute to former and present Ministers for getting a grip of this issue, and I hope they will find a way of getting together with the campaigning charity, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, and with the National Leasehold Campaign. I also invite the major media to appoint housing editors and housing correspondents who can follow the details of these debates, so that they do not turn up just occasionally on Victoria Derbyshire’s programme—I pay great tribute to her and her producers, and I also pay tribute to some of the money programmes. We need to have housing experts in the media who can help to get these stories into the public domain so that the Government respond faster and more fruitfully more often.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I pay tribute to the Father of the House for his work. I want to raise a point that came through this week from a constituent who has been affected by the leasehold issues that the APPG has raised. In instances such as hers—she is in shared ownership—cladding is becoming an issue for those who wish to sell their homes. We need clarity about exactly who will be eligible, and any provisions need to be flexible enough to cater for all those who are affected.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I agree. I also think it would be a good idea in the medium term if the Government and the investment sector found ways of taking freeholds and landlordism away from some of the big, bad owners and giving them to a group of infrastructure holders who would actually treat leaseholders and shared ownership people fairly and properly.
I want to move on to a number of other issues, because of the time limits we are left with. In 2002, the Government gave up the Crown preference whereby a failing business had to find how to allocate the money that could be gathered in, especially where attempts were being made to reconstruct the business to keep it going. The Government gave up their priority, but they are now bringing it back. I hope they will meet UK Finance and recovery experts to go through the issues that were debated in the Committee on the Enterprise Bill—now the Enterprise Act 2002—on 9 May 2002. I hope they will ask whether it is necessary for them to try to take a small fiscal gain for themselves at the risk of a 10 times greater impact on our economy. We know that businesses fail, and it is important that they do, but it is also important that they can be brought back to function in our economy. I hope the Government will review the question of whether Crown preference should be brought back in the way it is being.
The Government have rightly paid attention to the pub sector, and I welcome the reliefs announced in the Budget today by the Chancellor. I would refer him to the worries of some family businesses in the brewery sector—I do not want to name any in particular. When a business has been in the same family for 200 years or more, and when the family invest five times their dividends in modernisation and pay a third of their revenue to the Government in taxation, the question of whether business relief on inheritance tax should be under threat is important. That is a separate point from the entrepreneurs’ relief the Chancellor spoke about, which could be a subject of debate now and in the future.
Business relief for inherited family businesses is important if we want to have middle-sized companies that invest for the future year after year, and if we want to have a way for them to pass down their assets to future generations. That does matter in this country. The gap has been identified almost since the Macmillan gap 50 years ago—when I was studying economics rather badly—and it needs attention now.
While I am talking about the pub sector, I should mention that there are many vacancies, especially in the south. The limit on people coming into this country with the £12.63 an hour rate of pay will leave a number of vacancies. I therefore hope the Government will talk to the family brewers, in particular, and work in detail through whether there can be transitional relief or arrangements that will allow our hospitality sector, employing two thirds of its people from this country, but requiring a fair number of cooks and others from overseas, to continue safely and securely.
I talked about the life cycle approach to things. I happen to believe that the change introduced by a previous Conservative or coalition Government to make child benefit ineffective for people on £60,000 a year or more was wrong. I believe that support for children should come automatically. In a couple in which both people may be earning £60,000 a year, the taxation they pay on their £120,000 combined earnings will easily outweigh the child benefit they receive. We do not need to have people declaring or opting out of child benefit, or discovering that some change in their pay during the year has put them in a tax trap. I would restore child benefit for all children and expect that the cost of that would come out in the wash for those who are very well off.
The leader of the SNP talked about the 1950s women and the WASPI campaign. Anyone who thinks we can rectify the whole issue of state retirement pension for women at 60 is wrong. That approach was put forward at the last election, and it was rejected. However, there should be some give. That might involve an actuarial calculation, which is something my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I put to a previous Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, although he would not let his officials do the calculations. Equally, we could have at least some give, and give the Freedom Pass to these women so that they get some recognition of the fact that they have been double-hit by the changes. That would be a welcome initiative, and one that I would put forward to the Government.
While I am talking about pensioners, the biggest stain on this Parliament is that overseas pensioners in dominion countries and some others do not get the increases in the state pension. The law, as judged by case judges, is that while what the Government are doing may be legal, it is quite clearly wrong. The fact that we had pension agreements with Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and some of the Caribbean countries from the 1950s, when inflation was not an issue, should not leave us going on defending the indefensible. Why do half of our overseas pensioners get the increase and the other half do not? The Government really must build in getting rid of that anomaly by the end of this Parliament. It is unfair and unjustified, and it should not continue.
If we take a long view of taxation, we can afford to pay for essential public services and the cost of borrowing for investment. I do not believe our taxation system should be unchanged forever. We may find that people are willing to pay more at certain stages of life or in certain circumstances, and less at other times.
It is crucial that we recognise the value of health and education, and the Government have been doing that. The campaign to get fairer funding for schools has been successful, and those who tried to make school funding party political have failed, and they will fail if they try again. Let us unite on fairer funding for schools, as we have on leasehold issues, and on getting our health services to adjust the best way they can.
As an overall judgment, no one can tell what effect this coronavirus will have on the economy as a whole, except that the economy will be challenged in some ways that can be foreseen and in some ways that cannot. I hope the Chancellor will take the opportunity in the coming nine months to keep the balance between opportunity and fairness, with consultation on major changes before they are suddenly thrown on to an unsuspecting public.
The Government should never fear to talk about their options in the open, as they do between Government Departments. I wish the Chancellor well, I hope the Government succeed in our adjustment to being outside the European Union, and I hope our partnerships within this country, across Europe and across the world will bring the kind of prosperity that makes a difference to us.
I have been around long enough to know that, between 1979 and 1985, Britain went from being the sick man of Europe to being one of the most prosperous and most go-ahead nations. Some of those changes were planned and some were forced on us, but the key point is that we took advantage of the opportunities, and that is what we need to do again now.
Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access
Peter Bottomley Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chloe Smith
I am more than willing to repeat the points I made, which were that this briefing was additional to normal lobby handlings. Those lobby handlings are entirely normal, standard and routine, and have been so over successive Governments. I am not taking any further lectures from the Labour party, which needs to look in the mirror a little on this. The hon. Lady is part of a shadow Government who wish to regulate and introduce Soviet-style licensing of newspapers; and whose leader and shadow Chancellor take money from media organisations, such as Press TV, which are owned by foreign, hostile Governments. Under that culture, a BBC editor had to have protection at the Labour party conference, and the shadow Chancellor encourages direct action against journalists who do not write what he likes. Conservative Members strongly support the free press. I have set out the ways in which we do that. In addition to the briefings and the very normal routine operation of the lobby, the Prime Minister has a huge amount of further appointments and engagements on a range of channels. For example, he did more than 120 media engagements during the election. Senior members of the Government come to this House to answer those questions again, and we intend to continue doing those things. That choice is absolutely clear, and we on this side of the House stand up for a free and vibrant press. The hon. Lady needs to ask herself and her colleagues the same questions.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I do not think that anything has happened so far that matches what Alastair Campbell did in trying to get political editors sacked and saying that the then Government would not co-operate at all. It would be sensible for the Government to consider talking to the senior political editors who walked out, to see whether there is a way of getting over this problem and resolving it. Much of what my hon. Friend has said is fine, but the last bit leaves unresolved problems. There is no greater competition for an MP trying to get themselves into the media than from media people trying to get themselves reported and on air, but they walked away from it, so there is a problem and it needs solving.
Chloe Smith
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Father of the House for his wisdom and long sight on this issue. He shares with us exactly what these things looked like over successive Governments, which is to say that it is quite routine for there to be lobby briefings on a regular basis—we run them twice daily—and in addition to that some specialist and technical briefings. I understand the point that my hon. Friend closed his contribution with and am sure that that will be correctly considered. It is so valuable that we hear from him, given his long sight on this issue, which reminds us how these things look over history.
Election of Speaker
Peter Bottomley Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Sir Peter Bottomley (in the Chair)
Under the provisions of Standing Order No. 1A, I am now required to ascertain whether Sir Lindsay Hoyle is willing to be chosen as Speaker.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The whole House will want to join in the expression of the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister about the tragedy at Fishmongers’ Hall and London Bridge.
Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition that he only heard half the Woolwich West story, since I was a member of the 1/128 branch of the Transport and General Workers’ Union in Transport House and knew quite a lot about what was going on. For instance, I knew which MPs were not standing again—such as Peter Shore—because they had not applied for re-sponsorship and the like. It was a marvellous experience for me. Let me also say to the Leader of the Opposition that none of us is always right and none of us is always wrong; and on the issues where he and I have agreed, I think we have been right.
Mr Speaker-Elect, the advice that you might give in private—but which I will give in public—to those joining us for the first or even the second time is that they should listen to their Whips, obey the Chair, think of the interests of their constituency and the nation, and do what they think is right. I think that is the kind of thing that Speakers would remind us to do. May I conclude by saying that there are many good things to say about many of your predecessors, but I do not think that any of them have been such a welcome choice as Speaker, and Speaker again, as you?